Connection Problems

[busterbluth]

My son and I are using Maptool a lot, where I host a server and he connects. He is constantly losing his connection. He'll be on for a few minutes, maybe as many as ten, then click! He's dropped again. It's pretty frustrating because we're doing a face to face game; there's no connectivity on the internet.

We're using windows64 version of 1.4.1.8, we're on Windows 10 laptops (recently purchased within the past 6 months), and I have port forwarding turned on for 51234. Neither machine has any issue with connecting to our home router; that connection is very stable. I've also put connection rules in place for the maptool exe in Windows firewall for both machines.

Can anyone recommend something for me to investigate or a perhaps a setting to flip? I've been using maptool for over 10 years now, and I've never had such difficulty with connectivity, which is strange given that this is just a LAN game. Except for the connectivity, this program is a dream come true for gaming.

[Phergus]

Welcome to the forums!

You don't need port forwarding for a LAN connection. That is only for folks connecting from outside your lan.

When your son's client is connecting is he using the LAN tab or the Direct tab? Don't connect via the RPTools tab as that is for outside connections.

Generally it's easiest to just use the LAN tab but if for some reason your server doesn't show up on the LAN tab, go to the direct tab and just enter in the local LAN address for your server. Obviously you'll want to have your server PC set to a static IP address instead of using DHCP. Probably should have both set to a static IP.

[busterbluth]

Yeah, he's using the LAN tab. How do you set machines to a static IP?

[aliasmask]

Your router probably has some method to reserve ips for each machine so when you log on to the router you always get the same ip.

[busterbluth]

So, I just did an experiment; I've got a desktop on our home network and it's physically wired to our router.

Connection: first connect attempt showed nothing on the LAN tab; went to server laptop and restarted a server, then the desktop could see the LAN game

After connected: played around with tokens for a bit, and the connection was lost after a couple of minutes. The desktop is a Win10 machine as well, running the same Maptool version.

So, I suspect that the server laptop is somehow losing the connection. Any idears why that would be?

[busterbluth]

Another experiment result: running the server from the desktop, so far at least, appears much more stable. No dropped connections so far, so this looks like the laptop device is at fault. Must be some windows setting.

[taustinoc]

Or some piece of software that's running in the background that's eating up system resource, or network bandwidth, or just is flakey.

Best of luck on troubleshooting. That sort of thing can be pretty frustrating.

[Full Bleed]

Connection: first connect attempt showed nothing on the LAN tab; went to server laptop and restarted a server, then the desktop could see the LAN game

This is a bug in MT. Always hit "rescan" when connecting via the Lan tab. The sever will show up then.

After connected: played around with tokens for a bit, and the connection was lost after a couple of minutes. The desktop is a Win10 machine as well, running the same Maptool version.

So, I suspect that the server laptop is somehow losing the connection. Any idears why that would be?

Have you tried using both Wifi and a wired connection on the problematic server laptop? If one is stable and the other isn't that helps identify the issue.